The Closest Thing
by ChaoticHeroine
Summary: Set during 4x15 "A short story about love" Nina Sharp thinks over her life and how things have changed over the years. Spoilers for that episode. The Alt-verse title for this fic was "Choosing to Forget, Choosing to Remember."


**A/N This random Nina-centric plot bunny could not leave my head from the second that I watched episode **_**"A Short Story about Love" **_**during my Netflix binge of this show, so I figured I would write it and get it out in the open. **

…

Nina Sharp couldn't have children. This was a fact she had come to terms with long ago. She didn't much care to talk about it though. Her sadness showed weakness, and weakness was not beneficial, not when you were a female in a mans industry, trying to work your way to help create a multi-million, nay billion, dollar industry.

She still wanted children though. She had especially wanted children when she was with William Bell. However, he was much too preoccupied with work to begin to think about settling down, so she never brought up the subject.

She became quite close to Walter Bishop's son, Peter. They bonded over their love for horses. That is why it hurt so bad when Peter passed away from his autoimmune disease. She lost that closeness, and that feeling of maternal love was gone. Peter was the closest thing she had had to a child.

Nina had thought about adopting, and was actually looking into it quite actively when William and Walter told her of an incident that had happened down in Jacksonville during their Cortexiphan trials. They told her about a 9 year old girl who had killed her step father after seeing her beating her mother and going after her 5 year old little sister. They told her that the girl's mother had died a month later from a brain aneurism caused by the trauma of the beating she had taken that night when the girl walked in.

This girl was a special girl too. She was the strongest candidate from the cortexiphan trials, she displayed many abilities some strong-pyrokinesis and teleportation between realities-and some subtle, like heightened empathy. After all that happened William and Walter knew that they couldn't let her fall into the foster system, not with all of her abilities, her potential. They decided they would bring her to Kelvin Genetics and keep her there, safe, controlled.

"And what of her sister?" Nina had asked the two scientists, curious as to how well they had thought out their plan.

"She will be put into a foster home. She is young enough she should be adopted soon enough, and there is no need to keep her in the lab with her sister." William had reasoned.

"No, there is no reason to keep her sister in the lab, and there is no reason to separate her from her sister." Nina rebutted.

"Nina, we have _no idea _of how _powerful _this girl is. Regardless of the fact we have stopped the Cortexiphan trials, we cannot have just anyone watching over the girl. She _must be contained_." Walter had said, much more compassion had been in his voice. It was almost as if he felt _remorse_ for what they had done in Jacksonville.

"Contained? Walter she is a child. Besides it doesn't have to be '_just anyone' _I will pull some strings and I will take the girls. Give me their names and I will begin the process."

"Olivia and Rachel Dunham."

….

Nina had adopted the girls, raised them as her own. She was there for every loose tooth, every bad dream, first kiss, heartbreak, puberty. She was there when Rachel got pregnant her senior year of high school. She was there when Olivia, who had battled many demons since she was a girl, decided she wanted to go into the marines to become a Special Investigator. She was there for everything, because those two girls had became her everything. She saw them both grow to become beautiful intelligent women.

She never thought that she would lose them, especially because she made it her priority to keep them safe. However, just the other day, her world got turned upside down. Olivia had been acting strange. She had been drugged, and she was getting memories that did not belong to her. Normally a person would fight this, go crazy, or try everything to make it stop. However Olivia was never a normal girl, she was always special. She was embracing the memories, even when they were erasing her own.

"It doesn't matter. I met a woman today. She'd just lost her husband, and as she was talking about him and her marriage, as much as she wanted to be, she - she wasn't in love. As I was listening to her... I realized what she was saying. She had let go of the possibility of love... of finding love. And I could see myself in her. I didn't like who I was. Now, all of these... memories and feelings that I'm experiencing, they're from a - a better version of me. I've decided to let things run their course." Olivia said, Nina's heart dropping upon that last sentence. _I've decided to let things run their course._

No this couldn't be happening.

"Oh, you had an emotional day, and you don't have to decide anything right now." Nina replied.

"I've made my decision." Olivia was always stubborn, and when she made up her mind she was set. She'd always been like that.

"You have so much in your life, Olive. Are you just gonna let that all disappear? And be replaced by what? Memories... of a life that you didn't live?" She really didn't want to hear the answer, but she knew what it would be.

"Yes"

"Well, how long do we have?"

"I don't know. Neither does Walter." Olivia replied tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

There was no fighting it now, she was losing her little girl. Her Olive. Nina swallowed a sob and composed herself to reply.

"Hmm. Well, my mother used to say, 'Encourage the quest for happiness in your children, even if it takes them very far away from you'."

"When the day comes... if I don't remember this... I want you to try and build something with me again. Don't give up on me. I love you, Nina." Olivia said, her green eyes filling with unshed tears.

"I love you, Olive." She meant it. Every word. Even when her girl didn't remember a single moment of the life they shared, she would still mean it. She only clung to the faith that perhaps even then, when it was all gone, Olivia would still look at her and see the closest thing she had to a mother, because she was the closest thing…no, she was her daughter.

_Fin_

**A/N As this is taking place in the alternate timeline I did some research on said timeline. It appears that Nina got Olivia and Rachel directly after the Cortexiphan trials ended, and after she (in this new timeline) killed her step-father. We know this took place when she was 9, so my question was, why did she not stay with her mother? Because of what we know from Season 3, we have heard Olivia say that her mother (in the blue-verse original timeline) died when she was 14, so something had to have changed for her to go with Nina when she could have stayed with her mother. **

**Thus I have deduced, or perhaps made an alternate reality, that her mother must have died much sooner than 5 years after her step-father died. That is why I have the brain aneurism being added in, because if he had been more violent in the attack Olivia walked in on, Olivia might have been more inclined to shoot him to kill him rather than stopping before she knew for sure. **

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